In good time, many will think. We are already in the middle of summer and this one comes with a marketing guide for hotels. And although they are right, in an amazing dialectical pirouette I have to say that they are wrong at the same time. Two things at a time. Why? Well, because although it is true that at this time the summer will be practically reserved, it is also true that reserves are volatile and can evaporate at a minimum, as we have learned with great pain in the last two years. Also, they are always last minute reservationsa not insignificant market in which you should be well positioned.
Having turned 50 and feeling the bony and cold hand of Death (thus, with capital letters) running down my back while whispering in my ear “there’s less to go” is a pill that’s hard to swallow, and that doesn’t get any better when those around you They tell you “but you’re such a kid”, which is exactly what grandparents are told when they complain that their arthritic knees are no longer what they used to be. I don’t have arthritis (yet) but everything will come.
Rule for the saplings and saplings (how bad does that sound) who were born after 1992: NEVER tell a fifty-year-old “you’re a kid.” What you have to say is “really? Well, I gave you 42 or 43 at the most ». Lying is good if you make a near-dead person happy.
The fact is that the accelerated proximity of the end of my days has a curious effect on my brain (in addition to leaving my memory with more gaps than the Doñana marshes when there were no illegal wells to grow strawberries): more and more, everything matters to me one m three cucumbers. Which is fine when it comes to giving my opinion without biting my tongue too much and causing some gnashing of teeth from the Marketing4eCommerce editors, who must be thinking: “If it was cut before, I can’t imagine what this crazy guy is capable of releasing from now on”. Chi know?
I say this that I don’t give a damn about everything (oh, sorry, what was I thinking) because I’m going to start making friends. And it is that the vast majority of small hotel establishments and some of the large ones either:
- They lack their own marketing plan and are placed in the hands of others, whether they are booking platforms, travel agencies or public tourism promotion entities, or
- Their marketing actions are aimed at capturing events and companies because overall, the individual visitor already comes alone, or
- They register on as many booking platforms as there are and nacato wait. End of marketing actions.
Which is not strange in a country like Spain where tourism is abundant, but when the skinny cows arrive they catch us in our underwear. Therefore, the basic principles of (which must also be said that we Spaniards are cracks at this) is something that should be chiseled on the wall of the office of any owner or manager in the hotel sector.
So, neither short nor lazy, we are going to propose some keys on which to build a marketing strategy for hotels and tourist accommodation.
Hotel Marketing Guide – Table of Contents
Key points to create a good marketing strategy for hotels
Which are basically three:
1. Fate
Few, very few people go on a trip specifically to stay in a particular place. So, being well positioned in the tourist destination where your accommodation is located is a key aspect of marketing for hotels and tourist establishments. Eye, I speak of positioning yourself in the destination, not of positioning the destination as such. The latter is taken care of by tourism promotion agencies and organizations that, most likely, have more resources than you. The more accommodations that compete with you for the same tourist destination, the more you will have to position yourself and differentiate yourself.
An essential element for your establishment to be well positioned in the destination is that your website does not smell like mothballs and responds to what people are looking for in it that, eye, also depends on destiny. While in an urban hotel people will look for a good location or, failing that, have transportation to the center, in a rural destination the activities that your guests can do will count a lot, while in a beach destination they will be the sea views or proximity to the beach.
In addition to this, he has to be very well worked. If you have a hotel in Benidorm and you try to position it in Google with the keywords “hotel in Benidorm”… well, I wish you all the luck in the world because you have the same chances of reaching the first page easily as I do if I don’t follow (aggghs!) getting older. you’ll have to find one
Here are some examples of keywords for the Benidorm destination with their monthly searches according to the Google Planner:
The first, “all-inclusive hotel” has a very high monthly search volume to try to position yourself in it. Too many searches and high competition. But the rest of the words could perfectly be part of a strategy. But beware, Benidorm is a international tourist destination, so you will have to define very well which markets you focus on (point 2) and carry out the SEO work for each of those markets and in their specific languages. And of course, keep it in time, that the .
For more differentiation strategies you will have to wait for point 3, but what you have to be clear about here is that it is not just about selling “I have accommodation in destination X” but about “if you come to destination X, these are the reasons to choose my accommodation.
Unless in destination X the only accommodation is yours, which happens in few places (for example, Antarctica and certain parts of Teruel).
2. Target customer (target)
The next step when defining a marketing strategy for hotels and tourist accommodation is to be clear about who you are talking to, who your target is, what market segment you are interested in (and can) target. It’s not just about what kind of people you would like to choose your hotel, but what kind of people are more likely to choose your hotel. The first thing is a wish that I imagine you had in your head when you started your accommodation but, alas, one thing is who we want to buy from us and another who actually ends up buying from us.
To clarify this point a bit: You can do two things, which are:
- Adapt to the market based on the destination in which your establishment is located, the characteristics it has and the type of visitors it attracts. This, obviously, is cheaper for you, you risk less and as a consequence you have less to gain.
- Decide who you really want to stay in your hotel and adapt the physical product and the message to that type of public. And do not forget the determining factor of the tourist destination.
For example: Benidorm is associated with a type of tourism that is not exactly the one with the highest purchasing power. The vast majority of hotels in Benidorm have adapted to this guest profile, but That does not mean that there are no luxury hotels in Benidorm.
In fact, there are. Very few, but there are and they work well, because in such a massive destination it is possible that there are visitors with high purchasing power who choose that destination out of tradition, because their family also spends their vacations there… or who knows. What is more complicated is creating those attributes related to luxury in a destination that initially does not have them.
Another example: If you are going to open a rural tourism accommodation in the middle of a parched wasteland, you are going to have to work hard, but that is very good if you want to attract the luxury visitor, but I insist: it is not impossible, since you can sell insulation of the world, a green oasis in the desert, absence of light pollution to see the stars…
And to all this, add internationalization, which is not a minor thing or, in other words, it is a major thing. Remember what we mentioned in the previous point regarding the divergence when positioning your business in different international markets. To begin with, everyone has a different purchasing power and a different concept of “luxury” or “good service”, and of course what is “expensive” or “cheap”. Therefore, in addition to the socioeconomic characteristics of your target customers, you also You have to bear in mind that perhaps you don’t have to tell the French public exactly the same thing as the German or British public.
And that, in terms of marketing for hotels and accommodations, means investmentboth in knowing each market and in adapting your website and your campaigns to each one of them.
3. Differentiation
We arrive at the heart, at the molla of the bread, at the pit of the peach, the mother of the lamb. What is really going to make you sell more is your ability to differentiate yourself from your competitors, and in this hotel marketing is the same as any other sector. Bearing in mind points 1 and 2, in the short distances is where you play it. Like the men’s colognes of the 80s. Something that, by the way, is still valid in the marketing of colognes, which continue to insist on making us believe that our sex life is better with colognes. Anyone who has ever licked someone on the neck and suffered the horrible taste of colognes knows better, but they insist…
What is certain is that differentiating one hotel or tourist accommodation from another, with the determining factors of destination, target, etc., is not simply a matter of the decoration of the rooms. The trick (and the devil, mind you) is in the details. And taking care of the details is a) not easy and b) costs money.
Some elements of differentiation used by tourist establishments are based exclusively on the offer of complementary services, but in reality all this does is create an experience. Y If there is a sector in which the user experience is everything, it is tourism.
So the way to differentiate your establishment from others and a fundamental pillar of any marketing strategy for hotels is the experience. That is, make people remember the details.
Let’s start with a key concept: perceived quality is subjective.
A 5-star establishment, which in principle offers a better quality service than a 1-star one, may have much worse user ratings, simply because users of a 5-star hotel expect different (and supposedly better) things. than the 1 star. What is giving a quality service? Well, simply give the user more than he expects. No more no less. How many times have we heard “this hotel is one star but it’s great” or “for a five star hotel this hotel leaves a lot to be desired”? There you have it.
Throughout the hotel and accommodation business, the staff is a key factor in the perception of quality. How the client feels treated will inevitably condition the perception of it.
And it is not about leaving everything to free will or to the greater or lesser sympathy of those who are at reception, in the restaurant or in charge of the rooms. Obviously, finding the right people is important, but having clear protocols and…
Facebook Comments
Disqus